Problem-Solving Contracts in the UK excluding London

Problem Solving
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Problem-Solving skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Problem-Solving over the 6 months leading up to 1 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 7 12
Rank change year-on-year +4 +5 +6
Contract jobs citing Problem-Solving 2,553 2,399 2,343
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 18.37% 11.39% 10.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 20.37% 13.75% 11.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,526 1,380 1,450
10th Percentile £200 £200 £213
25th Percentile £350 £325 £355
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% -2.56% +2.63%
75th Percentile £571 £591 £588
90th Percentile £638 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 235 349 201
10th Percentile £13.81 £11.00 £13.29
25th Percentile £14.99 £13.00 £14.65
Median hourly rate £18.85 £15.14 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.50% -69.72% +154.26%
75th Percentile £30.63 £28.00 £64.50
90th Percentile £65.00 £59.50 £77.00
UK median hourly rate £21.90 £16.23 £51.50
% change year-on-year +34.94% -68.49% +110.20%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Problem-Solving falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 12,533 17,441 20,411
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 90.17% 82.79% 89.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,650 10,252 13,884
10th Percentile £235 £250 £263
25th Percentile £365 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £575 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £694
UK median daily rate £501 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.57% -4.55% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,062 2,166 1,285
10th Percentile £13.85 £12.50 £12.72
25th Percentile £16.95 £15.50 £15.64
Median hourly rate £24.66 £38.12 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -35.31% +8.91% +66.67%
75th Percentile £53.75 £61.60 £63.75
90th Percentile £72.50 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £37.50 £36.00
% change year-on-year -32.93% +4.17% +38.46%

Problem-Solving
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing Problem-Solving as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Problem-Solving in the UK excluding London

Problem-Solving
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Problem-Solving within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 July 2025. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England +4 671 £475 - 4,308
South East +7 559 £490 +3.16% 4,646
Midlands +8 402 £425 -10.53% 2,829
North West +8 387 £478 -2.05% 2,521
Scotland +7 354 £463 -2.63% 1,185
West Midlands +9 280 £450 -5.26% 1,679
East of England +3 253 £470 -6.00% 1,992
Yorkshire 0 251 £475 - 1,459
South West +5 243 £500 +2.56% 1,974
East Midlands +3 121 £367 -16.11% 1,111
Northern Ireland +3 51 £425 +10.03% 479
Wales -1 50 £375 -6.25% 552
North East -5 32 £450 -14.29% 345
Channel Islands - 5 £425 - 1
Problem-Solving
UK

Problem-Solving
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 100 (3.92%) SharePoint
2 99 (3.88%) Confluence
3 42 (1.65%) Microsoft Exchange
4 28 (1.10%) Apache
5 25 (0.98%) Apache Spark
6 23 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
7 16 (0.63%) IBM Domino
7 16 (0.63%) IIS
8 15 (0.59%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 10 (0.39%) CMS
9 10 (0.39%) Tomcat
10 9 (0.35%) Oracle Self-Service HR
10 9 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
10 9 (0.35%) Skype for Business
10 9 (0.35%) WebSphere
11 8 (0.31%) JBoss
11 8 (0.31%) Mattermost
11 8 (0.31%) WebLogic
12 6 (0.24%) CICS
12 6 (0.24%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 185 (7.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 123 (4.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 110 (4.31%) Microsoft Office
4 42 (1.65%) MS Visio
5 24 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.31%) Trello
7 7 (0.27%) AutoCAD
7 7 (0.27%) Simulink
8 6 (0.24%) Revit
9 3 (0.12%) Adobe Captivate
9 3 (0.12%) Photoshop
10 2 (0.078%) Adobe XD
10 2 (0.078%) CANalyzer
10 2 (0.078%) Chatbot
10 2 (0.078%) InfoPath
10 2 (0.078%) MicroStation
10 2 (0.078%) Sketch
11 1 (0.039%) Fusion 360
11 1 (0.039%) MadCap Flare
Business Applications
1 51 (2.00%) SAP S/4HANA
2 26 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.55%) Teamcenter
4 11 (0.43%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 10 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
5 10 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
6 9 (0.35%) Oracle EBS R12
7 8 (0.31%) Oracle HRMS
7 8 (0.31%) Payment Gateway
8 7 (0.27%) SAP HR
9 5 (0.20%) Maximo
9 5 (0.20%) Oracle Payables
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 4 (0.16%) Oracle Receivables
10 4 (0.16%) SAP CO
10 4 (0.16%) SAP FI
10 4 (0.16%) SAP FI/CO
10 4 (0.16%) SAP Payroll
Cloud Services
1 390 (15.28%) Azure
2 313 (12.26%) AWS
3 184 (7.21%) Microsoft 365
4 152 (5.95%) Power Platform
5 129 (5.05%) GCP
6 68 (2.66%) Entra ID
7 63 (2.47%) Amazon S3
8 56 (2.19%) Serverless
9 55 (2.15%) Azure DevOps
9 55 (2.15%) Cloud Computing
9 55 (2.15%) GitHub
10 51 (2.00%) PowerApps
11 49 (1.92%) SaaS
12 44 (1.72%) AWS Lambda
13 38 (1.49%) Power Automate
14 33 (1.29%) Dynamics 365
14 33 (1.29%) Google Workspace
15 30 (1.18%) Snowflake
16 28 (1.10%) OCI
17 24 (0.94%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 95 (3.72%) Firewall
2 86 (3.37%) VPN
3 73 (2.86%) Network Security
4 62 (2.43%) DNS
5 61 (2.39%) LAN
6 57 (2.23%) WAN
7 39 (1.53%) TCP/IP
8 31 (1.21%) DHCP
8 31 (1.21%) Wi-Fi
9 29 (1.14%) SAN
10 28 (1.10%) Wireless
11 26 (1.02%) MPLS
12 25 (0.98%) Ethernet
13 24 (0.94%) BGP
14 21 (0.82%) OSPF
15 20 (0.78%) ATM
15 20 (0.78%) Remote Desktop
16 19 (0.74%) SSL
16 19 (0.74%) Unified Communications
16 19 (0.74%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (4.39%) Power BI
2 88 (3.45%) SQL Server
3 84 (3.29%) Relational Database
4 70 (2.74%) MongoDB
5 66 (2.59%) Data Warehouse
5 66 (2.59%) Oracle Database
6 51 (2.00%) PostgreSQL
7 46 (1.80%) Tableau
8 44 (1.72%) NoSQL
9 41 (1.61%) DB2
10 30 (1.18%) MySQL
11 25 (0.98%) Oracle Reports
12 21 (0.82%) DynamoDB
13 20 (0.78%) Amazon RDS
14 18 (0.71%) Big Data
15 17 (0.67%) Metadata
16 16 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
16 16 (0.63%) BigQuery
17 15 (0.59%) RDBMS
18 14 (0.55%) Flink
Development Applications
1 187 (7.32%) JIRA
2 128 (5.01%) Git
3 115 (4.50%) Jenkins
4 61 (2.39%) GitLab
5 51 (2.00%) JUnit
6 39 (1.53%) Selenium
7 26 (1.02%) Cucumber
8 21 (0.82%) Bitbucket
9 17 (0.67%) Maven
10 15 (0.59%) Visual Studio
11 11 (0.43%) Cypress.io
11 11 (0.43%) Gradle
11 11 (0.43%) Postman
11 11 (0.43%) SonarQube
12 10 (0.39%) REST Assured
13 9 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
14 8 (0.31%) JMeter
14 8 (0.31%) TestRail
14 8 (0.31%) Xcode
15 7 (0.27%) webpack
General
1 1,540 (60.32%) Social Skills
2 945 (37.02%) Analytical Skills
3 478 (18.72%) Finance
4 175 (6.85%) Public Sector
5 172 (6.74%) Banking
6 96 (3.76%) Telecoms
7 87 (3.41%) Legal
8 80 (3.13%) Organisational Skills
9 79 (3.09%) Manufacturing
10 78 (3.06%) Presentation Skills
11 68 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
12 60 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 50 (1.96%) Influencing Skills
14 48 (1.88%) Pharmaceutical
15 45 (1.76%) Investment Banking
16 40 (1.57%) Retail
17 38 (1.49%) Marketing
18 36 (1.41%) Front Office
19 27 (1.06%) Electronics
19 27 (1.06%) Law
Job Titles
1 379 (14.85%) Analyst
2 285 (11.16%) Developer
3 190 (7.44%) Architect
4 160 (6.27%) Senior
5 132 (5.17%) Lead
6 119 (4.66%) Support Engineer
7 110 (4.31%) Business Analyst
8 92 (3.60%) Consultant
9 89 (3.49%) Project Manager
10 84 (3.29%) Java Developer
11 72 (2.82%) Administrator
11 72 (2.82%) Service Analyst
12 65 (2.55%) IT Support
13 64 (2.51%) Data Engineer
14 55 (2.15%) Service Desk Analyst
15 54 (2.12%) Network Engineer
15 54 (2.12%) Support Analyst
16 50 (1.96%) Data Analyst
16 50 (1.96%) Solutions Architect
17 46 (1.80%) 1st Line Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 95 (3.72%) REST
2 86 (3.37%) Kafka
3 83 (3.25%) React
4 82 (3.21%) HTML
5 81 (3.17%) RESTful
5 81 (3.17%) Spring
6 72 (2.82%) CSS
7 54 (2.12%) .NET
8 52 (2.04%) AngularJS
9 51 (2.00%) Web Services
10 48 (1.88%) SOAP
11 37 (1.45%) JSON
11 37 (1.45%) Spring Boot
12 29 (1.14%) JMS
13 27 (1.06%) LDAP
13 27 (1.06%) XML
14 26 (1.02%) Middleware
14 26 (1.02%) OAuth
15 23 (0.90%) Node.js
16 17 (0.67%) Hibernate
Miscellaneous
1 117 (4.58%) Management Information System
2 99 (3.88%) Self-Motivation
3 87 (3.41%) Product Ownership
4 69 (2.70%) Data Protection Act
5 60 (2.35%) Data Structures
6 54 (2.12%) Data Centre
7 52 (2.04%) Cloud Native
8 48 (1.88%) Onboarding
9 43 (1.68%) iPhone
10 42 (1.65%) iPad
11 41 (1.61%) Virtual Team
12 38 (1.49%) Enterprise Software
13 36 (1.41%) Algorithms
13 36 (1.41%) Equities
14 35 (1.37%) Legacy Systems
15 31 (1.21%) Analytical Mindset
15 31 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
16 25 (0.98%) CMDB
17 24 (0.94%) Security Posture
18 23 (0.90%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 379 (14.85%) Windows
2 237 (9.28%) Linux
3 92 (3.60%) Windows Server
4 65 (2.55%) Windows 10
5 63 (2.47%) Unix
6 51 (2.00%) Apple iOS
7 37 (1.45%) Android
8 28 (1.10%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 19 (0.74%) Mac OS
10 13 (0.51%) Windows Server 2016
10 13 (0.51%) zOS
11 9 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
12 8 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
13 7 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
14 6 (0.24%) AIX
14 6 (0.24%) Check Point GAiA
14 6 (0.24%) Windows 8
15 5 (0.20%) Ubuntu
15 5 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
15 5 (0.20%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 618 (24.21%) Agile
2 273 (10.69%) Project Management
3 271 (10.61%) Stakeholder Management
4 260 (10.18%) Continuous Improvement
5 255 (9.99%) Customer Service
6 253 (9.91%) CI/CD
7 250 (9.79%) DevOps
8 248 (9.71%) ITIL
9 240 (9.40%) Decision-Making
10 238 (9.32%) Migration
11 164 (6.42%) Computer Science
12 157 (6.15%) Change Management
13 156 (6.11%) Business Intelligence
14 153 (5.99%) Service Delivery
15 152 (5.95%) Validation
16 149 (5.84%) Analytics
17 147 (5.76%) Mentoring
17 147 (5.76%) Scrum
18 143 (5.60%) Time Management
19 138 (5.41%) ITSM
Programming Languages
1 380 (14.88%) SQL
2 343 (13.44%) Python
3 226 (8.85%) Java
4 157 (6.15%) PowerShell
5 136 (5.33%) JavaScript
6 74 (2.90%) C#
7 65 (2.55%) Bash
8 60 (2.35%) Shell Script
9 51 (2.00%) PL/SQL
10 46 (1.80%) TypeScript
11 25 (0.98%) Perl
12 20 (0.78%) Scala
13 19 (0.74%) C++
14 16 (0.63%) PHP
15 13 (0.51%) C
16 12 (0.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
17 11 (0.43%) VB
18 9 (0.35%) Bicep
18 9 (0.35%) Go
18 9 (0.35%) JCL
Qualifications
1 411 (16.10%) Security Cleared
2 323 (12.65%) Degree
3 304 (11.91%) SC Cleared
4 112 (4.39%) Computer Science Degree
5 95 (3.72%) Cisco Certification
6 92 (3.60%) Microsoft Certification
7 75 (2.94%) CCNP
8 74 (2.90%) DV Cleared
9 53 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
10 48 (1.88%) A+ Certification
10 48 (1.88%) ITIL Certification
11 46 (1.80%) CISSP
12 42 (1.65%) Master's Degree
13 41 (1.61%) AWS Certification
14 37 (1.45%) PMP
15 35 (1.37%) PMI Certification
16 30 (1.18%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 28 (1.10%) Azure Certification
17 28 (1.10%) ISTQB
18 26 (1.02%) CCNA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (6.42%) QA
2 102 (4.00%) Data Quality
3 76 (2.98%) GDPR
4 64 (2.51%) SLA
5 45 (1.76%) Accessibility
6 28 (1.10%) PMO
7 26 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 26 (1.02%) NIST
8 19 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
8 19 (0.74%) HIPAA
9 18 (0.71%) PCI DSS
10 15 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 8 (0.31%) GRC
12 7 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
12 7 (0.27%) NCSC
13 6 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 6 (0.24%) MiFID
13 6 (0.24%) WCAG
14 5 (0.20%) SEPA
15 4 (0.16%) PMBOK
System Software
1 210 (8.23%) Active Directory
2 108 (4.23%) Docker
3 81 (3.17%) VMware Infrastructure
4 24 (0.94%) vSphere
5 22 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (0.63%) VMware NSX
7 15 (0.59%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
8 11 (0.43%) Virtual Servers
9 7 (0.27%) Firmware
9 7 (0.27%) RACF
9 7 (0.27%) VMware ESXi
10 6 (0.24%) Virtual Desktop
11 3 (0.12%) NFS
11 3 (0.12%) Time Sharing Option
12 2 (0.078%) Apache ZooKeeper
12 2 (0.078%) Job Entry Subsystem
12 2 (0.078%) Microsoft Virtual Server
12 2 (0.078%) Terminal Services
12 2 (0.078%) Veritas Cluster Server
Systems Management
1 114 (4.47%) Kubernetes
2 100 (3.92%) Ansible
3 90 (3.53%) Terraform
4 54 (2.12%) Microsoft Intune
5 51 (2.00%) SCCM
6 27 (1.06%) Single Sign-On
7 26 (1.02%) Oracle RMAN
7 26 (1.02%) Puppet
8 21 (0.82%) Grafana
8 21 (0.82%) vCenter Server
9 17 (0.67%) SCOM
10 16 (0.63%) Progress Chef
11 13 (0.51%) Prometheus
12 12 (0.47%) FortiGate
12 12 (0.47%) Jamf Pro
13 11 (0.43%) NetBackup
14 10 (0.39%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 10 (0.39%) Podman
15 9 (0.35%) Data Guard
15 9 (0.35%) Tivoli Identity Manager
Vendors
1 574 (22.48%) Microsoft
2 199 (7.79%) Oracle
3 165 (6.46%) ServiceNow
4 146 (5.72%) SAP
5 121 (4.74%) Cisco
6 95 (3.72%) VMware
7 92 (3.60%) Google
8 48 (1.88%) IBM
9 46 (1.80%) Juniper
10 39 (1.53%) Red Hat
10 39 (1.53%) Splunk
11 36 (1.41%) Citrix
12 34 (1.33%) Sybase
13 27 (1.06%) Salesforce
14 26 (1.02%) MobileIron
14 26 (1.02%) Nexthink
15 25 (0.98%) Dell
16 23 (0.90%) CyberArk
17 21 (0.82%) F5
17 21 (0.82%) Nokia